Design of X-and Ka-Band Reflectarray Antennas for Intercelestial Communication Using CubeSat Relay

Abstract

This paper presents the design of reflectarray antennas operating at X- and Ka- bands with gains of 27 dBi and 34 dBi, respectively, which will be used for 3U CubeSat relay communication. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) collects around 573 GB of data per day and the data is sent to the ground station (WS1) located in White Sands, New Mexico [1]. The LRO communicates with the earth station an average of 4 times per day throughout the year [2]. The LRO has several instruments in the lunar orbit, ranging from passive imagers to an active altimeter, as well as a synthetic aperture radar [2]. There is a growing need to transfer more data to the earth station for future missions. In order to accomplish this goal, we propose to use a CubeSat relay between earth and the moon orbiter. This CubeSat will communicate with the deep space network (DSN) instead of communicating with WS1 and this will help in improving the connection time between the moon orbiter and ground station. The data rate of the proposed method would be 4.5 Mbps with binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation.